This diary is a combination of a couple of comments that I have made while discussing the "collapse" of the war funding resistance.
Here is the deal:
You give up and go away, they win. That is what they want you to do. They LOVE controlling the agenda in both parties. If you leave, they get to keep pretending to be an "opposition party." You can only change that if you can take back control of the Democratic Party. The corporatist single party folks CONTROL both parties right now. There are some signs of life in the netroots of the Democratic Party, and the DNC, but they are weak,and need to be fed and watered and nourished mightily, as the Lieberman victory pointed out.
We need to keep fighting the corporatists for every house seat, every senate seat, every precinct chair, every state executive committee member, every county chair, every party chair until we take back our party, just like the Right Wing religious folks did in the Republican Party.
Join me on the flip side for why the Third Party way won't work...
We cannot reach our goals through an independent / third party approach. The current two parties have a LOCK on elections in this country at the local, state, and national level. Sure, occasionally once or two independents get through, but we do not have the strength / power / money / time left to organize something like that to make enough of a difference to change the course we are on. All Perot would have done, had he been elected, would have been to unite both corporatist parties against him.
If you quit the Democratic party then you are quitting the one path to actually changing things that MIGHT work. Besides something outside of politics, like massive demonstrations or strikes.
Stay, and fight hard. And we have only BEGUN this fight. As Kos said, it is a 10-20 year fight. The technology of the internet MAY change that, but it may not. You have to keep fighting. 10-20 years down the road, if we fail, then we can look at the massive organization and effort that would be required to create a new party from scratch to try and compete at ALL levels with the Republican and Democratic parties. But the better way is right now, through taking back OUR party.